


A Witch's Guide

by venvephe



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Practical Magic Fusion, Bisexual Eggsy, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 18:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5836543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venvephe/pseuds/venvephe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy's family is a family of witches; the magic has been passed from generation to generation, father to daughter to son to daughter. But it comes with a price, a family curse: use magic, and the one you fall in love with is doomed to die an untimely, early death. </p><p>Eggsy's seen what the curse - the loss of his father - has done to his mum, and vows to protect himself <i>against</i> love. He won't give up his birthright magic for love, for someone he is supposed to love but has never met.</p><p>That's before he meets Harry Hart, of course.</p><p>Love and magic have a great deal in common.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Witch's Guide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Regency](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/gifts).



> For Regency, for the Winter '15-'16 Hartwin Secret Santa! This first chapter feels different from my usual style, as I'm trying something new, but I hope you enjoy it! I couldn't help but be drawn towards this prompt - magic, after all, is something I love to write about. (Hartwin is too, of course.) Enjoy!

Eggsy doesn’t remember the exact words, but he does remember this: there’s a tall, sharply-dressed man knocking at the door, and then inside their flat, and the thread of worry in his mother’s magic becomes less of an undercurrent and more of a deluge.

He’s four, which is old enough to know not to ask about magic when there’s anyone else around besides the two of them. Still - something’s wrong, and he steals glances as his mother from his position on the floor as the adults speak in hushed voices.

Something’s wrong, and as he strains to listen two things happen at once: the glint of gold metal catches the corner of Eggsy’s eye, and the anxious, acrid worry of his mother’s magic becomes deafening, drowning sorrow.

Eggsy can barely hear the broken sob his mother makes over the gut-punched, crushed feeling of her projected grief, waves and waves of it that clog his ears and nose. The stranger’s soft voice is white noise against the roaring, aching pain; Eggsy feels as much as hears the quiet whine building in his own throat, until-

It stops.

It’s unnaturally quiet, unnaturally still - and suddenly chill in their warmly-lit flat. His mother’s shoulders still shake and the stranger’s mouth is still a thin line, like nothing is different, so it takes Eggsy a moment to realize: his mother’s magic is gone. There’s isn’t the faintest echo of her sadness, or the usual warmth of her protective love seeping into the room, curling around him. Her hand shakes as she refuses the shining medal; she’s locking everything inside, shuttering her magic so that Eggsy doesn’t feel her agony, alone and straining to lock in grief so hard that she trembles with it-

The man stoops in front of him, blocking her from view as Eggsy’s still trying to puzzle together what’s going on, confused. The medal on its striped ribbon is warm from the man’s hand, but it’s no replacement for his mother’s warmth.

“Take care of this, Eggsy,” he says, and Eggsy hears _take care of her_.

His mother gathers him in her arms when they’re alone again, but feeling her sob into his small neck still isn’t the same as the comforting tingle of her magic around them.

She doesn’t need to say the words; Eggsy knows that his father isn’t coming home.

 

-

 

“Eggsy, listen to me, babe,” she cups his cheek, smoothing along the curve of it with a sad smile. “It’s time that I told you about our family. I - it’s past time that I told you about our family.”

“I’m seven now,” he reminds her proudly, and she hiccups a quiet chuckle.

“I know, babe, and that’s why it’s time I told you.”

He’s seven now, but that’s still not too old to resist when Mum beckons for him to sit in her lap, though he pulls a face when she buries her nose in his hair and breathes in deeply, like she’s always done. It must be a mum thing. But she pulls back to give him a sad smile, and clasps his small hands in her larger ones.

“Our magic, yeah? It’s - it’s a family thing.”

“We’re witches,” Eggsy says and she smiles at that; it’s her own words in his young voice. “Mum, I _know_ that.”

“Well, the magic we have comes - it has a price,” she pauses, “We’re - me, and my dad before me, and maybe you - we’re cursed.”

Eggsy’s eyes widen. “What kind of curse?”

“Not quite the kind you’re thinking of,” she smiles ruefully, knowing how quickly his mind has jumped to the tales of dragons and princesses and wizards that he loves so much, “It’s a love curse.”

He can’t help it - he wrinkles his nose again, face drawn into a frown. “A love curse?” he says, skeptical.

“Oi, there’s nothing wrong with love,” Mum chuckles, but her smiles doesn’t reach her eyes, now. She’s gotten better at it - false smiles - but Eggsy can always tell.

“There is if you’re seven,” Eggsy tells her, “Girls are gross.”

“They won’t always be,” she says, sighing.

Eggsy squirms in her embrace, turns to look up at her. The lines on her face are more pronounced, lately, and she sighs more, like she’s tired. She’s usually right about these things. “Maybe when I’m eight,” he concedes.

That makes her chuckle again. “Well,” she continues, “Maybe when you’re eight, then, I’ll tell you about-”

“You can tell me now!”

She combs her fingers through his hair again, and he lets her with minimal fuss; she’s quiet as she thinks, but Eggsy knows to wait. “It’s a curse that if - when you fall in love, that person you fall in love with is going to die too soon.”

Eggsy bites his lip, and they’re silent for a beat as the weight of what she doesn’t say falls between them.

“But I love you,” Eggsy says - asks.

“It’s not the same kind of love, babe,” Mum shakes her head, and her hair tickles his cheek. “It’s the falling-in-love kind of love that’s cursed. But we do have a choice; we can give up our magic-”

“Give up magic!?”

“-and never use it again, or be cursed to lose the ones we fall in love with.”

It doesn’t take long for Eggsy to make his mind up about that. “Then I’m never going to fall in love.”

“Eggsy,” she rolls her eyes.

“I won’t fall in love!” he declares, “because I ain’t giving up magic. That’s what I choose.”

“Oh, Eggsy,” she sighs again; she pulls him into a hug, so Eggsy can’t see her face, but he can hear it when she speaks again. “I’m not sure any of us have a choice about falling in love.”

 

-

 

He’s eleven when he comes up with the idea.

Eggsy flat-out refuses to give up magic; it’s in his blood, a gift given to him through generations of witches, something special and secret and _his_.  Why have magic and _not_  be able to use it?  He turns the thought over in his head, huddled in bed underneath several blankets to ward off the winter chill. The telly is muffled through the wall, but the garish, repeating laugh track still winds its way to his ears. There’s an acrid tang of cigarette smoke in the air that lingers in his nose, on the back of his tongue; he can’t escape it, even in the confines of his own room with the door shut.

The choice between love and magic is easy when you’ve seen what love - _lost_  love - can do.

Mum disappears at night and returns late, when he should be asleep - he can hear her come back, even with the white noise of the telly that she leaves on. She reeks even more of smoke in the morning, and Eggsy’s old enough that he’s starting to see the seams in the glamour magic she applies. And for all that his mum tries, she doesn’t do a great job of shielding herself when she drinks. The scar of grief her magic carries has dulled over time, but it still throbs and aches.

Eggsy doesn’t want this for her, so he tries his best to be what she needs - but it’s not the same. He’s only eleven, after all, and nothing he does seems to be enough. There’s no joy in her magic like there once was, and the tired smiles she gives Eggsy are nearing threadbare. There are days when her eyes linger a little longer on the too-blue of his, and she averts her gaze so swiftly that he _knows_  it’s because she can’t bear the sight of them, his father’s eyes in his own young face.

Eggsy doesn’t want this for her and he doesn’t want this for _ himself_, not ever - and there has to be a way to ensure that it will never happen. He flops onto his other side and curls up, tucks in his knees to keep his feet warm, and thinks. He falls asleep with half-formed spells in his mind.

They don’t have many spellbooks, and it’s not something he can look for in the library at school, so he’s left to scrounging what he can and making some parts of it up. But his mum has always said that the exact words don’t matter, it’s how you say them, and writing his own spell to counter his family’s curse is the best bet Eggsy has.

He writes out the words in a small spiral-bound notebook. There wasn’t a spell for not falling in love, so he goes for the next best thing: using a regular love spell to ensure he’ll fall in love with someone who doesn’t exist. He bites his lip as he writes, frowning. It’s easier to think of people who do exist than people who don’t.

It comes to him after a minute, when he’s finished listing his ingredients: dried rose hips from the potpurri in the loo, a violet from Mrs Haversham’s window box, a red string from the sewing kit in the cramped closet. They’re reading stories of King Arthur and magic and knights, in school. His mum used to tell him such stories of magic, of the history of witches like them through the ages, though she hasn’t in a long time. Whether or not they’re true, if the people were real - those knights would be long dead at this point, not even bones in the ground.

Eggsy knows exactly what he wants to write.

He gathers his supplies in the coming week, and sets his alarm for just before midnight on the night of the next full moon.

He won’t fall in love if he has anything to say about it.

-

 

It isn’t until he’s fourteen that he has his first kiss - the true test, the moment of truth. Admittedly, it takes him by surprise, and there’s a spark of adrenaline in his gut when Jenny presses her lips to his for the briefest of moments before she pulls away, bashfully giggling. His cheeks flood with heat, as much with surprise as anything else, and his heart thuds in his chest as he waits out the long, molasses-slow seconds for something to happen.

Whatever he was expecting to feel, it doesn’t come. He rubs at his lips thoughtfully long after Jenny and her gaggle of friends have flitted off, wondering at what he  _thought_  he’d feel after - that.

But there’s nothing besides the lingering warmth of her hand on his cheek and his pulse drumming loudly in his ears. There’s nothing like what his mates have described, butterflies in his stomach or flame in his heart or anything else.

So it - it worked.

It worked, and he can’t tell anyone, but _the spell  worked_.

If his friends mistake his excitement about the long-awaited results of the spell for excitement about his first kiss, well - that’s all right, ain’t it? That’s what is normal, anyways: having crushes on their classmates and talking over the still-unknown mysteries of love and sex, ribbing each other about first kisses and passing notes. It means he has to listen to his mates go on about the girls they have their eyes on, fibbing when they tease about who he’s got on his mind, but the lies are better than actually _feeling_  any of it.

-

 

The front door slams open with a bang; even two rooms away and with his headphones on, Eggsy can hear it. The walls of their flat are thin, and the peaceful quiet is no match for the ugly thunderstorm that is Dean.

Eggsy hates Dean. He hates how he sees his mother treated by Dean - but maybe even more than that, he hates what Dean _means_.

His mum doesn’t love Dean; she’d given up on love after it had been ripped from her so suddenly and violently, after it had left her hollow and with no body to bury. This - this shallow affection, or whatever it is - is easier. Being with a spiteful, nasty man like Dean is easier than being alone, easier to stomach than trying to find a love again that _means_ _something_. With the family curse looming over them, a dark cloud on whatever possible happiness she could find - Eggsy knows her heart couldn’t take it a second time.

It doesn’t make him hate Dean any less.

-

 

For all that the world seems to be in love with love - romantic comedies and love stories on tv, in film, in the millions of ads plastered around London - Eggsy can’t imagine wanting it enough to give up _this._

He whoops as he vaults over a railing, gives himself a magical boost that sends him flying farther, faster, ducking and rolling as he comes down onto another rooftop. Adrenaline courses through his veins along with the sharp spark of magic, a crackle of energy on his fingertips. It’s heady, the feeling of launching into the sky and falling back to earth, catching himself just so to channel his momentum, push himself into the air again.

Below him, Jamal laughs in delight at his acrobatic antics, barely keeping up on his bike as Eggsy executes another perfect jump and twist, landing on a lower rooftop with both feet. The thrill of it, the performance sends another bolt of adrenaline and energy up his spine. He can’t resist letting the magic arc across his fingers and then jumping even further into the air, gathering the magic around him to hang longer, weightless, against the backdrop of blue sky and bright clouds. With a flourish Eggsy flips, sticks another landing that’s just a hair on the side of impossible.

“Mate,” Jamal calls up to him breathlessly, shaking his head when Eggsy hops down to street-level, ping-ponging back and forth on the walls of a narrow brick alley, “how did you learn to do this shite?”

Eggsy knows his grin is a little smug. “One of the perks of gymnastics - ain’t afraid of jumping.”

“Or falling,” Jamal claps him on the shoulder, and they amble down the sidewalk in the direction of their local, catching their breath and letting their heart rates slow down to normal. It’s easy, amicable - like Eggsy jumping down from the rooftops is something they do every day - which it is. “That and being in the gym with the ladies, eh?”

“I said _one_ of the perks of gymnastics, didn’t I?” Eggsy winks, and Jamal barks out a bright laugh that lasts nearly until Ryan spots them and joins the two of them on the next corner.

He doesn’t need magic to free-run, but once he’d learned that he _could -_ there’s no way he’d give up that feeling of flying for anything.

 

-

 

But just because he can’t - and doesn’t _want_ to - fall in love, doesn’t mean he’s _celibate._

There are girls, yeah, occasionally boys if they catch his eye - and Eggsy’s pretty sure he’s got this exactly right. With wet mouths and warm skin, so long as they know what they’re getting into with him, it’s easy to let himself have this. He prides himself in being pretty _good_ at it, too; there’s no pressure for one-night stands to turn into anything more, no rush of _but what if he’s the one_ , so he’s free to focus - ha - on the task at hand.

He’s always had charm, _charisma_ \- he doesn’t need magic for that, neither - and he earns himself a bit of a reputation among his mates as love-’em-and-leave-’em. But he can’t be bothered, really, by the comments and jibes laughingly thrown his way. With a magical prophylactic against love, he’s free to do what he pleases with his body without having to risk his heart. (Though he’s got plenty of johnnies, ain’t a need to run _that_ risk unnecessarily.)

So Eggsy collects kisses like pocket-change, flirts just to make people smile, learns when to keep his tongue in check and when, oh, to let it wag.

There’s a strange sting, though, the first time he catches Ryan kissing his girl on the stoop of her flat. It’s a moment in time he shouldn’t witness, shouldn’t watch; it isn’t his. But he sees it out of the corner of his eye, can’t help but watch from far down the pavement, beyond the pale orange circle of the street lamp that illuminates them.

It’s both more and less than passion. Eggsy stills, pauses in his tracks to watch for another moment longer. He’s familiar with lust: the slow burn of it in his belly, the quick flash of heat in his veins when he can finally touch and be touched. He knows how easy it can be to let passion consume, to dive into pleasure face-first and with abandon. It’s human, natural - not the same kind of natural as calling up his magic, but not so different, either.

But this is -

Ryan leans into her embrace, leaves a dragging kiss along her shoulder as he slides his fingers up her back and into her dark hair. She tips his chin up with one hand and presses a kiss to the side of his mouth, taking a backwards step up and away; but they linger in each other’s space, coming back for soft, gentle kisses like orbiting comets.

When they’re finally too far apart to lean back in, Ryan shuffles backwards and she reaches behind her for the handle of the door. They still can’t keep their eyes off each other, all tender, secret smiles.

Eggsy has to look away, then.

The pang in his chest is odd and uncomfortable, the sensation like a rib nudged just out of place, or knuckles that need to be cracked. Something inside him is jostled, ill-fitting where a moment before all had been well, and more than anything, it leaves Eggsy unsettled. But it’s- it’s illogical; he’s made his choice to stay out of love, and thinking about what he can’t have - what he’s willfully given up - isn’t worth dwelling on.

He turns up the collar of his coat against the cold and turns away before he glimpses anything more.

 

-

 

When Eggsy is small - back in primary school, it must have been - his mum catches him using little glimmers of his magic around the other kids, playing football in the scrap of a park near their flat. It’s just a _little_ magic, just enough for the ball to end up at his feet more often than it might naturally, for his kicks to send it a little faster and farther and out of the reach of the short goalie’s outstretched hands. Just because he’s young don’t mean he’s _daft_ ; he knew it was a risk to use magic with other non-magic people about. That was part of the _fun_ of it.

But mums must have a sixth sense about those things, because as soon as she spotted him she somehow knew - somehow saw the spark of white-blue as his foot connected with the ball and sent it flying. His ear-to-ear grin falls when he sees her out of the corner of his eye, marching towards the makeshift football pitch, her mouth set in a grim line that Eggsy knows bodes ill for him. He’s been caught.

Eggsy only whines a little when she drags him away from the game by the hand - as much to put up a front to his neighborhood friends, since he _knows_ he’s been caught out and will get the earful he probably deserves for using magic so casually.

His mum doesn’t start until the door to their flat closes behind her, though, and when she turns to him it’s with a sigh. She pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers and shakes her head, flyaway hairs coming out from her ponytail around her face. Eggsy knows she’s just done a spell to ward off an impending headache.

“Eggsy,” she says, dropping her bag and crossing her, “what have I told you about magic?”

“Not to use it around people that aren’t witches like us, which is _anyone_ besides us,” Eggsy parrots back, faithfully, “But Mum, it was just a bit of fun with the football-”

“Not just that,” Mum drops down to crouch in front of him, hands on her knees. “Come on - the second most important thing.”

Eggsy’s mouth pinches into a frown and he guiltily remembers, now, that there is a second part: “Don’t use magic to do anything you wouldn’t be able to do without.”

“Exactly,” she nods, and lets her eyes search his face for a quiet moment before opening her arms, beckoning him into a hug. “Oh, Eggsy. It’s _important,_ all right? Even if it don’t seem so, it will save you a lot of trouble if you follow Mum’s rules about magic.”

“I just wanted to have fun,” Eggsy’s voice is muffled in the fabric of her sweatshirt, but she pets up and down the length of his small back soothingly, like she always does.

“You _can_ have fun - just don’t get used to using magic to do everything. You have to be able to do things yourself, yeah? You have to learn, you can’t rely on magic all the time, to do everything - okay?”

She holds him at shoulder-length, mouth stern but eyes soft. “That means at school, too - no using magic to do things you couldn’t do without.”

“What _can_ I use magic for, then?” Eggsy pouts - but only a little.

“Oh, all sorts of things - I can still teach you more, and you can still have fun with it,” his mum shrugs, giving him a small smile. “You just have to be practical.”

 

-

Eggsy carries that advice with him all the way through basic training with the Royal Marines.

It’s tempting, to use magic to give himself that extra burst of energy during the taxing, exhausting physical training sessions that leave his bones aching and muscles sore. It would be so easy to make his bunk _actually_ perfect for inspections with a quick spell, rather than tugging out the creases in the sheets by hand. It would save him from having to do another two sets of push-ups when he answers a question wrong, his head still feeling cotton-stuffed and slow after completing a rugged obstacle course or a mind-numbing exam.

But his mother’s wisdom as right, as frustrating as it had been not to use it to his advantage; it’s fine to use magic for fun, practical things, but when it comes to the military, to doing his job - he can’t risk his life on the whims of his magic.

He needs to know proper gun safety and how to chamber a bullet, not rely on magic to do the task for him. He can’t get away with magically detecting for IEDs, lest his magic trip up and cost him his life - or another’s. So he does the hard work - puts in the sweat and tears like everyone else, proves to himself as much as his commanding officer that he belongs here, in the Royal Marines.

And he does prove it - is good at this. Without anything but his own strength and wits he places in the 90th percentile of physical challenges, comes as close to acing written tests as anyone’s ever seen. It’s not easy, but it’s good, and he doesn’t _need_ magic to do well.

(If use his magic to make his bunk softer, well - that’s practical, and easy enough to ensure that no one else will find out.)

Of course, in the end, that’s what it all comes down to - risking his life.

It’s not something he can put his finger on - no use of magic that he’s been taught, anyways, another mystery of magic - but he can feel his mother’s pain through her letters, can sense the wavering heartbreak that she leaves like fingerprints on each page. She doesn’t come outright and say it until they’re actually on the phone, but she can’t bear for him to do this.

And Eggsy, for all that he loves this, _wants_ this - he can’t bear to do this to her.

-

Eggsy isn’t sure of her at first.

To be fair, babies don’t always give a good first impression because they’re just that - babies. This squirming, wee pink little girl that his mum places into his arms has her eyes screwed shut and won’t sit still, fast approaching the precipice of another round of crying. She’s a couple months old and isn’t a total surprise; Eggsy knew she’d been born while he was in the Marines - another more definite reminder that Dean is still a part of their lives.

That fact alone is enough to make him wary of her, though he’d have given anything to be at his mother’s side when she’d come into this world. So he holds her like she’ll break, trying to hum soothingly - because that’s what people do with babies, yeah? And his mum is watching, getting a little misty-eyed at the sight of Eggsy holding her daughter.

“Daisy,” he croons, looking down at her little scrunched-up face, “C’mon, Dais - can’t you give us a smile?”

It doesn’t happen right away, but between Eggsy’s gentle bouncing and soft words she starts to come around. Her expression smooths and her eyes open tentatively - bright and hazel, like his mum’s. Eggsy’s heart jumps, suddenly, his throat going tight. He glances up, grinning at his mum - and when he looks back down, Daisy’s smiling too.

It would’ve taken his breath away, if he hadn’t already had a bit of trouble breathing; he’s starting to get why his mum had been so excited for him to meet her. Daisy won’t look away, big eyes roaming over his face and giving him a wide, toothless grin.

“See? I told you she’d like you,” his mum says, pleased. Eggsy ignores the nasal inflection in her voice, the way she blinks twice to fend off happy tears.

“I like her too,” Eggsy admits, smiling.

Being an older brother gets better from there.

 

-

 

Another thing Eggsy’s learned that you can’t use magic with: the police.

It takes restraint not to let his forehead hit the cold metal table with a heavy thud; he’d gotten himself into this mess, and there wasn’t any way for magic to get him out of it.

He just couldn’t resist, could he? It was one thing, letting Dean’s cronies bully them out of The Black Prince - which was _their_ local before it was his, thank you very fucking much - and even the little magic trick of nabbing the keys and stealing the car wouldn’t have been a big deal, had the coppers not spotted them so quickly. Fuck, why hadn’t he just walked away from it? Why was his mum still _with_ Dean in the first place? Eggsy groans. Why hadn’t he pushed the fox-cat-whatever-animal out of the way with magic, rather than slamming on the breaks and getting himself arrested not even a year after getting out of the Marines?

His mum is going to be _pissed_ if he goes to prison.

He’s thumbing the medal around his neck, trying to think through his options, when he remembers - it’s _the_ medal around his neck, and maybe there’s a way out of this after all.

 

-

 

One short and perplexing phone call later, he’s not so sure.

But then - he gets released without question, without consequence, strolling out of the police station and into the sunlight like he hasn’t just spent the night there with a potential prison sentence hanging over his head. It’s not every day that you get a chance at a literal Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card; if that’s not its own kind of magic, then Eggsy doesn’t know what is. He won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, though, mentally resolving _not_ to get himself into these kinds of situations again.

Of course, that’s the moment that Eggsy meets Harry Hart, and the moment his troubles with magic and love _really_ begin.


End file.
